Saratoga’s Travers might not have a Pletcher horse in it

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Travers Stakes may not have any Todd Pletcher star power in it this year.

Pletcher, who has been the nation’s top trainer six times, has a thin barn right now when it comes to 3-year-old colts. When the Travers is run on Saturday, Aug. 23, the only Pletcher runner that could be in the starting gate is a lightly raced 3-year-old named Tiz Dark, who has two career starts.

Pletcher has had a tough year with his 3-year-olds. Most recently, Intense Holiday, who won the Grade II Risen Star, was second in the Grade II Louisiana Derby and 12th in the Kentucky Derby, was euthanized last week after developing the painful hoof disease laminitis in his front forelegs. Danza, the third place in the Derby, is out with injury and so is Commissioner, who was second in the Belmont on June 7.

Pletcher ran four horses in the Kentucky Derby, two more in the Derby. None of them are on the Travers radar. At least not now.

“We have a nice horse in Tiz Dark,” Pletcher said at his barn on the Oklahoma Training Track Monday morning. “We will run him in the ($200,000, Grade III) Dwyer (Stakes at Belmont July 5) and see how it goes.”

Tiz Dark is owned by Starlight Racing, which also owned the ill-fated Intense Holiday.

“You never get used to things like this,” Jack Wolfe, the co-managing partner of Starlight, along with Duanesburg’s Don Lucarelli. “You either hang it up, or you keep on going.”

Pletcher was also hoping to get a Belmont rematch with Tonalist in the Travers, but that is not going to happen. Constitution, who lost the Belmont by a head, is out for four to six weeks after an ankle chip was found following the race.

Pletcher said Constitution is at WinStar Farm in Kentucky and hopes the colt will be back in the fall.

“I doubt he will make a race (in Saratoga),” Pletcher said. “He really could not have run any better (in the Belmont). We had him ready to run a big race in a race we have been pointing him to for a long time. ”

Commissioner led the whole way in the Belmont before getting beat in the last jump by Tonalist.

“Those kinds of races stay with you forever,” Pletcher said. “But, when you win the big ones, they stay with you forever, too.”